Coral Beach, Florida
Coral Beach, Florida, is a fictitious town in the Dreams to Reality 'continuity that serves as one of the two primary settings of the novel series. Established in 1878 near the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River in southwestern Florida. The city was revealed in 1889 to be the shoreside home of the Coralian Jewels, a collection of very powerful jewels with supernatural powers. Consequently, the jewels' powers were used for evil purposes, causing the supernatural Curse of the Coralia Statue to be unleashed on the town, causing untold amounts of devastation and horror both in Coral Beach, as well as in Eagle Creek, Ohio after the jewels were transported there in 1890 for a brief time. Coral Beach would be subjected to inexplicable supernatural horrors during four different time periods since its incorporation: the first unleashing of the Curse of the Coralia Statue in 1889-1890; werewolves causing chaos during every full moon in 1902; vampires attacked the town for several months in 1924; and in 1947, aquatic demons known as the Boltans arose from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico and nearly destroyed Coral Beach at the same time as the second release of the effects of the Curse of the Coralia Statue. Despite a distance of over 1,200 miles between the two towns, these supernatural events are astonishingly similar to supernatural outbreaks in Eagle Creek, Ohio, with differences being a reversal of the order in which vampires and werewolves beseiged either town in 1902 and 1924, and in 1947, Eagle Creek contended with an alien invasion during the time of the Boltan invasion in Coral Beach, while both towns were subjected to the effects of the Curse of the Coralia Statue in 1889-1890 and 1947. Following the 1947 incidents, neither Coral Beach nor Eagle Creek experienced any noteworthy supernatural events until late 2007. In the intervening years, the population of Coral Beach grew explosively in the late 1980s and early 1990s in part due to the founding of a satellite headquarters of the extremely successful Park Enterprises electronics company in Coral Beach in 1989. The Coral Beach office quickly overtook the original Raven Hill, Ohio headquarters as the company's more profitable office, bringing hundreds if not thousands of new jobs to an area of the United States that was experiencing rapid population growth at the time anyway. As a result, the population of Coral Beach has exploded, from approximately 10,000 in 1970 to over 30,000 in 1980, to nearly 75,000 in 1990, to over 100,000 in 2000, and by 2007 boasts a population of 154,000. The city was heavily damaged in 2004 by Hurricane Charley, which made landfall near Captiva Island nearby, devastating the island, and the effects are still being felt today, though Coral Beach proper has largely recovered from damage from the hurricane by late 2007. Town History 'In the novels (2010-present) Demographics Government and Politics Culture Locations of Interest Local Natural Locations *Coralia Harbor *Caloosahatchee River 'Areas of Town' *Warehouse District 'Restaurants & Cafes' *Spyder Cafe A popular local coffeehouse with many public computers with free wi-fi services, as well as a stage from which local bands and entertainers perform for the guests. The cafe, owned by Sam Guerrero, opened to the public in 1998 as the first area cafe that offered free use of public computers for accessing the internet, and has remained an extremely popular hangout for area teens and young adults. *10257 Agualinda Boulevard, Coral Beach, Florida 33900 *'Employees' **Sam Guerrero (owner, 1998-present) **Tabitha Guerrero (general manager, 1998-present) **Alison Clouse (server/barista, 2006-present) **Megan Winters (server/barista, 2007-present) **Xander Thomas (server/barista, 2007-present) **Chandra Harrison (server/barista, 2007-present) 'Residences' 'Royal Tree Circle' An extremely affluent area of Coral Beach, home of most of the upper-class characters in Dreams to Reality living in Coral Beach. Royal Tree Circle encircles several affluent housing developments, serving as an access road for the group of housing developments to Florida State Route 78 *'Clouse Home' **11245 Royal Tree Circle, Coral Beach, Florida 33900 **Characters Residing Here: ***Francesca Clouse ***Doouglas Clouse ***Alison Clouse *'Princess Grace Court' **'Grayson Home' ***11842 Princess Grace Court, Coral Beach, Florida 33900 ***Characters Residing Here: ****Charles Grayson ****Ivy Grayson ****Danielle Grayson ****Stephanie Grayson ****Julian English Background Information *The city of Coral Beach, Florida is based on the real-world city of Cape Coral, Florida. Many neighboring towns to real-world Cape Coral also appear in the Dreams to Reality '''continuity as neighboring towns to Coral Beach, and almost always with the same name as their real-world counterparts. *There is a big difference in the histories of Coral Beach and Cape Coral: In reality, Cape Coral was founded in 1957, while in '''Dreams to Reality, Coral Beach was founded much earlier, in 1878. It is presumed that the towns neighboring Coral Beach will follow their real-life counterparts' histories for the most part, however. *The location of Coral Beach, Florida came into being after the 2000-2004 web series concluded, though during the web series, the "role" of Coral Beach was substituted with Long Beach, California, where the characters of Danielle Grayson, Mark Shane, Holly Stanley, Devon Hawk, James Hawk, Jake Tenners, Margo Tenners, Damien Guerrero, Trent Guerrero, Alison Clouse, Megan Winters, and Derek Warner originated during the web series continuity. The setting was shifted from southern California to southwestern Florida in the intervening years since the web series' cancellation. The reason for the change in settings was to more realistically portray the already-unlikely scenario that as many connections between Eagle Creek and a secondary setting so far away could exist, with Florida being much closer to Ohio than California and still having a western ocean coast. *For a time during the series' restructuring since 2004, Coral Beach was intended to be given its own series, which would have run concurrently with a series centered on Eagle Creek, with each chapter of both novel series being meticulously planned to occur simultaneously along the same interconnecting timeline, including the numerous crossovers between characters from either setting which would be planned for and implemented at step-by-step intervals between the novels. Following nearly two years of planning for the series to be split into two series, it was eventually decided in 2010 to recombine the two series after it was deemed too daunting to stick to such a rigid continuity format. The series that is to become still holds extremely rigid chronological guidelines, but is somewhat easier to manage without necessarily having to showcase as many low-profile storylines as filler in one setting while another setting is having a higher-profile story come to a climax in the other. Under the new format, the cast will be very large, but many secondary characters will not appear for many chapters at a time, then make a few appearances in a row, with narratives detailing their activities during their absence. Under the prior planned format, these secondary characters would usually be included in nearly every chapter regardless of how mundane many such storylines would be bound to become in the "everyday lives" of the characters. This decision was made in order to "clean-up" the series, which was quickly becoming enormous very early on before any major events even happened yet. *The original series bible for '''Dreams to Reality '''never included the addition of a secondary setting. The entire idea to split the series off into a secondary setting was almost a running gag during the 2000-2004 web series in which many characters were explained as coming from the same city--Long Beach, California, in their pasts. Whenever a character not originally from Eagle Creek would be asked where they were from, they tended to end up answering Long Beach. After a time, a story idea grew out of this at-first "coincidental" anomoly in the series, with many important storylines to the current setting during the web series in the second setting. By 2002, a spin-off series was planned, which was to be set in Long Beach and serve as a sister series to the one based in Eagle Creek. The original web series was cancelled before the spin-off could get off the ground, and, following the scene switch from California to Florida, the spin-off series is now simply a secondary setting in the novel series.